Why Are Some Families Multilingual?

Most families are multilingual because life happens! You marry someone from a different nationality and move to a third country. This is the perfect setup for a trilingual family situation. Maybe you move with your monolingual family to Indonesia, have a French au pair at home and send your children to an English-speaking school. Or, Papi and Mami, who met as exchange students in the UK, speak different languages, but use English with each other because that is the language that they used since they met. They may decide to speak their native languages to their children, but keep English for themselves. For many families multilingualism is a necessity. They couldn’t communicate otherwise. For many others multilingualism is a choice. For both, it is a commitment they make towards raising their children as multicultural, global citizens.